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# Required Reading
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/required-reading-8/
- Published: 2011-03-20T11:00:47.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:34:51.000Z
- Description: This week … what makes an artist a professional, taking Rirkrit Tiravanija's relational aesthetics for a joyride, Jan Gossaert at the Nat'l Gallery, post-Katrina New Orleans, a history of title design in cinema, stereoscopic pics as GIFs, Eli Broad's art collection, Google Street View as art & in Ch
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: Opinion, #image-position-hidden, Eli Broad, Google, Jerry Saltz, New Orleans, Overunder, Required Reading, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Rob Pruitt, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-11-17 09:23 (2009-2011)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2011/03/overunder-mural-600.jpg)

Overunder (Erik Burke) and No Touching Ground just finished a mural collaboration in Bushwick, Brooklyn, which includes a plea to donate to help the victims of Japan's earthquake and tsunami. (via Eyeteeth)

Here are this week’s links from around the web that includes — among other things — the limitations of relational aesthetics, thoughts on post-Katrina New Orleans and Google Street View as art and China’s pixelated version …

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

Over at the Huffington Post, [Daniel Grant](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-grant/pop-quiz-for-the-professi%5Fb%5F832836.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) considers the age-old question, *what makes an artist a professional*?

> The Census Bureau (whose data on artists is extrapolated by the National Endowment for the Arts), for instance, claims that there are something over 100,000 visual artists in the country.  
>  
> … The Internal Revenue Service, on the other hand, does not consider someone a professional artist — able to deduct art-related expenses from gross income on tax forms — unless that person made a profit on the sale of his or her work in three out of five years. The government, therefore, may deem someone an artist on one hand but a rank amateur on the other hand.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

In *New York Magazine*, [Jerry Saltz writes](http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/03/jerry%5Fsaltz%5Fon%5Fgavin%5Fbrowns%5Fin.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) about two Gavin Brown gallery goers who took artist Rirkrit Tiravanija’s relational aesthetics for a joy ride \[in Gavin Brown’s car\]. Though the best part of Saltz’s story is artist Rob “what-does-this-have-to-do-with-me” Pruitt’s attitude:

> Gavin Brown walked into a meeting upstairs from his gallery and announced to his artist Rob Pruitt and Public Art Fund director, Nicholas Baume, “My car was just stolen.” (In classic artist concern-for-the-work-first fashion, Pruitt asked, “This is not going to interfere with our meeting, is it?” Brown looked around, said, “I guess not,” and sat down.)

BONUS LINK: [WTF is Relational Aesthetics](https://hyperallergic.com/wtf-is-relational-aesthetics/)?

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

In the *London Review of Books*, [Peter Campbell reviews *Jan Gossaert’s Renaissance*](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n06/peter-campbell/at-the-national-gallery?ref=hyperallergic.com) at London’s National Gallery, which is on display until 30 May:

> Very little is known about the detail of Gossaert’s life and character but he was a court painter and never established a large studio. One must assume that the taste of his patrons is legible in his work no less than his own.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

Nicholas Lemann writes for the *New York Review of Books* about the [recent crop of movies that explore post-Katrina New Orleans](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/24/new-new-orleans/?page=1&ref=hyperallergic.com) and the cultural and racial politics of the Crescent City. This article should interest anyone who wants some insight into the current situation in a city that some people thought (hoped?) might turn into an artist mecca.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

A [fascinating video](http://kottke.org/11/03/a-brief-history-of-title-design?ref=hyperallergic.com) that explores the history of title design in cinema. Chances are that if you enjoyed Christian Marclay’s “The Clock” than you’ll like this.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

*Le dernier cri*, [twitchy GIFs made from stereoscopic photos](http://thecreatorsproject.com/blog/twitchy-gifs-made-from-stereoscopic-photographs?ref=hyperallergic.com).

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

Los Angeles billionaire [Eli Broad talks to the *Los Angeles Times*](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-ca-eli-broad-at-home-20110320,0,5724648.story?page=1&ref=hyperallergic.com) about how he built is blue-chip art collection with his wife, which includes about 2,000 works, including 120 by photographer Cindy Sherman, 33 by Jeff Koons (who is also a good friend), and pieces by Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, David Smith, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cy Twombly, Leon Golub, Luc Tuymans, Marlene Dumas, Chuck Close, Susan Rothenberg and Ed Ruscha … thought they also own “a vintage Calder mobile, a 1939 Dora Maar portrait by Picasso and a colorful 1933 dreamscape by Joan Miró.” Broad estimates that he has spent $200 – $400 million on art over the years.

![](http://c2771442.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/H-12.png)

Ever since Google Street View launched in 2007, [artists](http://www.artfagcity.com/2009/08/12/img-mgmt-the-nine-eyes-of-google-street-view/?ref=hyperallergic.com) and [filmmakers](http://thecreatorsproject.com/blog/a-science-fiction-film-inspires-a-new-google-street-view-project?ref=hyperallergic.com) — and everyone else — have been obsessing over it, but did you know that China’s version of Google, Baidu, has chosen to [go pixel-rific](http://map.baidu.com/?newmap=1&l=17&tn=B%5FDIMENSIONAL%5FMAP&c=1076693,8937486&cc=sh&s=cur%26curtp%3D0%26wd%3D%E4%B8%8A%E6%B5%B7&sc=0&ref=hyperallergic.com) rather than photo-based for their maps? \[via [Metafilter](http://www.metafilter.com/101623/Clean-orderly-and-entirely-devoid-of-human-life?ref=hyperallergic.com)\]

[*Required Reading*](../19053/tag/required-reading/) *is published every Sunday morning at 7am-ish EST, and it is comprised of a short list of art-related links (10 or less) to long-form articles, videos, blog posts or photo essays worth a second look.*